Hi. Welcome to my bio page. Here you will find out a little bit about the creator of this
web site and the reason for it.

First of all, my name is David Hayes and I live in Dalton. I'm 53 years old and I work for
Shaw Industries in Dalton. I am an avid football fan: particularly high school, the Dalton
Catamounts, and college, the Georgia Bulldogs for which I will forever bleed red and
black. I’m also a fan of the Atlanta Falcons. I’m just not that big a fan of the NFL.

I have a small sign business called "Signs of the Times". I do mostly the small jobs that the bigger sign companies don't like to fool with. Yard signs, car tags, youth team football and baseball helmets, magnets & stuff like that. It’s possible you could see some of my stuff from Gainesville to Colquitt, Ga.

The reason I started this web site is two fold. First and foremost is my love for high
school football. There's not a more pure form of the sport anywhere on the planet! It's
really something to look forward to on Friday nights after a long work week. The thrill
and excitement that comes with it is hard to match. I've been attending games ever since
I was in school, and that's been a long time ago! I get just as excited today as I did back
then as a kid. I can't imagine anyone not liking high school football! The other reason I
started this site is, I have always had a fascination for logos. Any kind of logo. Especially
sports team logos. One day, I stumbled across a web site called "The Helmet Project&quote;.
For someone like me fascinated with logos, this was hog heaven! To see the logos of
every team from the smallest college to the defunct USFL, was just amazing to me. That's
what really lit the fire so to speak.

I got to thinking it would be nice if these folks from around the state could see the
helmets used by teams that they'll never see in person or on the news or in the papers.
And for a webmaster of a team site to use to represent his/her team. I knew it would be
a huge undertaking considering how many schools there are that play football under the
jurisdiction of the Georgia High School Association.

Once I figured out how to create the helmets and was satisfied I could display a quality
image, I started with my beloved Catamounts and went from there. That's when I set
in to emailing all the schools. I began writing letters to the different schools requesting
information about their team helmets. In a span of about 2 months I had sent out over
800 emails. I did about 45 helmets before I uploaded the project on 2/28/02. I figured I
had enough teams represented by that time so the public could see what it was all about.
I was hoping it would draw enough interest that the information would start coming to
me instead of the other way around. It worked! I got all the local teams first since they
were the ones that were most familiar to me. After that, it got a little more complicated.

I had to rely on the fans of the various schools to get me the information. Initially, only
a couple of people in particular helped me, but as the website began to pick up steam,
more and more people got involved. Without these two guys, Jimmy Hughes and Chris
Willis, this site would have never gotten off the ground. There are many others that have
helped that I am eternally grateful too. There are just too many to name here. To all of
you, thank you!

A special thank you goes out to Johnny Walton, Webmaster for "Football Friday Night"
and the "Lincoln County Red Devils" of which there is really no need for introduction.
Everyone knows what a successful program Larry Campbell has over in Lincolnton. If
you don't, you're not much of a high school football fan! Johnny has helped me with this
project more than I could ever repay him. In fact, if not for him, I wouldn't be introducing
this new web site format. He did all the work, and I personally thank him. He also invited
me to be a part of his very popular football website. To you Johnny, I am so grateful for
your friendship.

The website is in its eighth year now and I still get nothing but positive feedback. I guess
you could say it’s been pretty successful. I hope it has been useful to all the webmasters
that work at the newspapers, schools, and the team web sites. I really appreciate
everyone's kindness and the flattering comments I've received since the project went
live. It has been much more than I ever envisioned. Countless newspapers and a few t.v.
stations across the state are using the images in their high school coverage. I'm proud of
the fact that I've been able to contribute in a small way to promote the greatest sport on
the planet, high school football! Once again, thanks to all of you that have visited the
site, and to you newcomers that are visiting for the first time, May God bless all of you.